00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and I'm so stoked about this episode. We get to chat about rethinking weapon play. This is a hot topic. It's one with a lot of opinions, and I really wanted to dive into the child development aspect of this. I got to hang out with Kisa Marx and Samuel Broaden to have this conversation. Kisa is an author, a child advocate, and a champion of early educators. With over two decades in the field, she spent 15 years running her self -affirming play in nature focused family home childcare in Oak Park, Illinois. Recently, she switched to a nonprofit model to offer high quality childcare to families who would otherwise be denied ac...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village. And today, I got to hang out with Maria Davis-Pierre to chat about Black families who are navigating autism diagnoses and what that Black side of autism looks like, both within the Black community and outside of the Black community. Maria graduated from Florida State University with a Bachelor's of Science in Sociology and went on to obtain a Master's of Science in Mental Health Counseling from Nova Southeastern University. As a licensed mental health therapist, Maria primarily works with Black parents to provide support through education and advocacy training. Her passion for working in the field stems from her personal j...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and I got to hang out with Claudia Hammond to talk about why kindness matters and how do we teach it. One of the things I've been really into is this difference between being nice and being kind and what is kindness? How does it play out, not just in early childhood, but then down the road? What effects does it have on our mental health and the longevity of our mental health? I was so enriched by her research that it was really exciting to get to chat with her. She has a book out called The Keys to Kindness, and we got to chat about like, what does it look like to be kind to toddlers and to support tiny humans in building ...

 00:00:00    Alyssa

Y 'all I am so jazzed to share today's special episode with you. It's a sneak peek from our 2024 Seed Teacher Summit coming at you March 12th to the 14th. We are so grateful to have a brand new batch of incredible speakers this year and so many essential topics like Playful Transitions, Why Play Matters for Neurodivergent Learners, and of course How to Manage a Classroom Full of Spitters. This is going to be a compilation episode with little snippets from a handful of the interviews just to give you a taste of what's to come. The summit is free, f -r -e -e FREE to watch so please share it with any educators, administrators or fellow caregivers in your life who would b...

The statistics are staggering. On average, preschool teachers are paid half of what kindergarten teachers are paid. The wage gap is more extreme for educators of color, who make up 40% of the ECE workforce. 20% of the early childhood workforce turns over every year.

As one of the wealthiest nations in the world, how did we get to a place where early childhood educators are so undersupported that they’re leaving the field entirely?

 
Our childcare system began in space where it was primarily stay at home parents. During WWII, more women began to enter the workforce and the childcare landscape began to shift. People came together to help each other, and a lot of family care programs popped up...